


when all else fails, try time travel

by Kirta



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, Time Travel, hand wavy magic bs, the morgans have a very unstable relationship with memory, the rest of the future kids are also there but they don't really get to do anything this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 09:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirta/pseuds/Kirta
Summary: A thousand years after the defeat- but not the death- of Grima, only Nah remains. The twins, Morgan & Morgan, have appeared for reasons unknown even to them. The Exalts are gone and so Nah turns to the next best method to defeat the Fell Dragon: time travel.





	when all else fails, try time travel

**Author's Note:**

> first written for polyshipweek 2019 over on tumblr. was kinda just intended as a one-shot, but also i've been known to let extremely specific aus consume me, so maybe in time there will be more (and maybe it'll actually get to the poly-ness lol)

in their defense, they really didn't intend to break time. 

nah remembers time travel- she’s done it before, after all, and it had worked well enough then. she and her friends had risked everything to prevent the waste that had been their future, and it had worked. more or less. 

perhaps less, after all, since grima is back and there is no one to stop him. 

the exalts’ line is gone, their city levelled four hundred years past. it’s possible that some survived, but broken or buried, the result is the same. naga’s chosen are gone. falchion is gone, looted and lost a dozen times over. the fire emblem and the five gemstones are hopelessly out of reach, hoarded and guarded by four different nations that refuse to give them up or to join against the fell dragon.

nah doesn’t know where- or when, for that matter- the twins came from. she thinks they must have come from different worlds, because they share the same face and the same name, and unless their parents were either very confused or very unkind, they wouldn’t have given twins the exact same name. then again, people could be very strange, so it wasn’t impossible. the twins had no memories when they arrived at nah’s front door, hungry and dirty and as painfully cheery as nah remembered. she never had learned the fate of the morgan she had known- they had left word that they were going off to find their memories, and never returned.

nah hadn’t had time to process morgan’s reappearance and apparent duplication before the risen had attacked the village she had called home for the past five decades. even with the twins’ help, she wouldn’t have been able to defeat them all, so she took them by the hands and fled. she learned in the days and weeks afterward that the undead were stirring again, and something terrible was beginning in valm. she retreated with the twins and prayed to naga for answers, but the divine dragon was silent.

it’s been nearly two years now. the fell dragon reigns and the risen rule the earth. nah regroups with her twins, who have remembered nothing but fight with her anyway. they live in an ancient fortress in the wilds near the ruins of ylisstol, weather-worn and leaky in places but solid and more than big enough for the three of them. they have learned nothing and won nothing, and even the twins’ relentless optimism is wearing thin. nah organizes what little they have and thinks back to her last battle against grima. she had been with the shepherds, then, she and all her companions from a ruined future. they had falchion, and the emblem and the stones and naga’s blessing, and they had won. nah sits in her room and rolls her old dragonstone in her hands. she understands little of the mechanics of time travel, but it had served them well once before. could it again? she thinks of asking naga, who had granted them passage before, but her goddess hasn’t spoken to her in years.

she goes to the twins instead. she calls them both morgan, since they both claim it as their name. they tell her there’s a difference in her voice depending on which of them she’s talking to, and that they can always tell, so there’s never been any confusion. not between the three of them, at least.

the first of them she finds in the library, pitifully small compared to the royal archives of ylisse, or even to the mobile library the shepherds had managed to accumulate. here and now, it’s a veritable treasure trove. morgan is reading, humming tunelessly to herself and scribbling notes onto a cramped piece of paper. “morgan, how much do you know about time travel?”

the answer is significantly more than nah had expected. morgan’s brother wanders into the library halfway through with food. “why are we talking about time travel?” he asks.

“i have an idea,” nah begins. she’s told them the stories of her youth, including the leap into the past. “is it possible to reverse our travel to the past? can we bring people from the past forward, to help us here?” the twins look at each other, and a world of things pass unsaid between them in flickers of expression.

“maybe,” morgan says. her brother nods. “we’ll have to see. i’m sure there’s something here that can help us!” the two turn to the shelves and begin their search, and nah swears they seem more energetic than a minute before.

two weeks later, they come to her in the middle of the night, bags under their eyes and shoulders drooping, but smiles undimmed. “we’ve got it!”

they wait until morning at nah’s insistence, because even to an untrained eye the magic looks _complicated_, and probably something best attempted on a solid night’s sleep. nah’s spent the last two weeks chasing the risen away from their little castle while the twins worked, and she’s as tired as they are.

there’s a list of components as long as nah’s arm, some of them rare indeed, and what looks to be several days’ worth of preparations for the ritual itself. nah has learned something of magecraft in her time, but the twins practically breathe it. the details of this ritual are beyond nah, but she trusts them. besides, it’s not like anything else they’ve tried has done anything. nah leaves the fortress, shifts into a dragon, and ranges for another week to gather everything they will need.

morgan smiles when nah deposits the crate carefully in the courtyard, now cleared out and lined in twisting designs in chalk and paint and something that smells too much like blood. morgan immediately opens the crate and starts tossing the items inside to his sister, who heaps some of them at different points in the array and some in a beaten copper brazier that hadn’t been here when nah had left and some on a worktable carried out of the castle and set at the edge of the yard. when they’re finished, nah takes a deep breath and shifts back to her human form.

“how sure are you that this will work?” she asks. the twins shrug.

“i’d give it a solid 50%, i think,” says one. 

“so there’s an even chance it fails?” nah says, steeling herself for a disaster.

“there’s an even chance it works!” morgan insists. she pulls her hair back from her face. “there is one thing, though. i think we’ll need more energy than the two of us can provide. you said naga opened the portal last time, right?” nah nods. “i don’t think we can quite rival the strength of a divine dragon.” nah nods again, wishing they had mentioned this _before_ she’d spent a week chasing down magical ingredients and potentially leading grima’s scouts back to their hideout. she holds out her dragonstone, worn smooth from years of familiar hands.

“do you think this would work?”

morgan takes the stone and nah can feel the faint breath of magic against her skin as he examines it. “probably. but-” he hesitates. “what will that do to you?”

nah shrugs. in truth, she has no idea. her mother had once told her that manaketes were able to transfer their life force through their dragonstones, but spoke little of the consequences. “i’m sure i’ll be fine.”

“hm.” morgan watches her too closely. “alright then! if you say so. let’s get this started!” he turns to the massive design in the courtyard and begins checking it over for any overlooked detail. his sister guides nah to an open space in the center of the array. she lights the brazier with a lazy flick of magic and takes nah’s hands.

“we’ll handle most of this, but your part is the most important. we’re trying to summon people you know, so all of that intent will flow through you. whatever happens, until it’s over you have to stay focused on the people you’re reaching for. got it?” she stares into nah’s eyes with intensity until nah nods.

“i understand. i’m ready.” morgan nods back and runs to the worktable and then to her brother.

“here we go!” she shouts from across the courtyard.

nah kneels and clasps her hands. _naga, heed my prayer. please, let this work. we have nothing else._ she can hear a quiet hum, beyond the range of human hearing. it emanates from the ground around her, a slow pulse, like the heart of the earth. ancient. the twins can’t hear it- not with their nonmagical senses, anyway. yarne would have been able to. nah smiles at the memory of her taguel friend. so many called him coward, and while it was true he wanted nothing to do with any of their wars, he would fight for his friends and family without question. he’d done it for her, once, and she was forever grateful for his intervention that night.

the earth shakes, a shiver that barely even rattles the empty glass vials on the worktable. nah takes a breath and thinks of her friends. the memories are dusty, and some of them a millennium old, but she has never forgotten them. brady had saved her once, too, from a terrifying three feet of water, but still she was grateful. gerome had always intrigued her, though she laughs now at her awkward first attempts at friendship with him.

someone grunts behind her, and she turns to look. the twins are on their knees at the edge of the array and they are glowing with power. magic dances around them, and nah is again amazed at what they are capable of. “nah! stay focused!” one of them shouts at her. she turns away.

she thinks of cynthia, endearing even when she was overbearing, of owain, who was much the same and always so _bright_. she thinks of lucina, their exalt, who they followed into the unknown in their final gambit. they would have followed her to the end.

a phantom spear, cold and sharp, pierces her chest, and she can feel the power being siphoned from her dragonstone and, with surprise, she realizes she can feel morgan’s regret. he doesn’t know if she will survive this, either. she doesn’t fight it. she lets the power flow from her and reaches for her friends from her heart.

she reaches for severa’s thorniness and kjelle’s solidity, for noire’s hidden strength and inigo’s persistence. nah can feel her own strength waning and she redoubles her efforts. she reaches for laurent, their constant watcher. she thinks of the morgan she had known all those years ago, but she does not reach for them, unsure what they might mean for the twins. the strain of the magic is building. nah can see her friends in her mind’s eye now, so clearly, and she reaches out and _pulls_. she feels something fighting her. the twins are shouting something behind her, but she squeezes her eyes shut and _pulls_ again. again. again. something gives. she opens her eyes and sees a glowing circle wrenched open in the air before her. something moves on the other side.

nah closes her eyes again and prays. _naga, give me strength._ she pulls again and she feels something pass her. desperately, she reaches. for her friends, for the shepherds, for anyone who can help them. she reaches for chrom, because another exalt can only help them and he was never one to turn away from the good fight. there are shouts all around her now, but she does as morgan told her and keeps her focus. she reaches for nowi, her mother, who had fallen in this new future with ylisse. there is a concussive burst of sound and power, and heat growing all around her. she reaches for her father- she smells smoke.

\-----------

the thing with time travel is that it’s not an exact science. it hadn’t been the first time and it isn’t this time. 

when nah finally comes to she can still smell the smoke. it smells like something cooked and she tries to block it out. she’s laying with her head cushioned on something firm and there’s something warm and soft covering her. there is a warm, smooth orb pressed into her right hand. she blinks her eyes open and sees morgan looking down at her, his brow creased with worry.

“are you alright?” he asks, helping her sit up. the array he and his sister had etched into the stone of the courtyard is destroyed. parts of it are burned away and in more than one place the stone has cracked apart. the brazier is overturned and its charred contents are scattered. nah examines herself carefully.

“i feel fine. did it work?” she freezes at the sound of her own voice. she looks down at herself and finds that the warm thing covering her is morgan’s purple coat. her own clothes hang off her body loosely. “morgan. why in the name of all the gods am i a child again.”

morgan scratches the side of his head and looks away. “we’re still working on that.” he looks back at her and beams. “it worked though! you did it!” he points across the courtyard, where his sister is standing anxiously at the edge of a cluster of people. nah squints at the group. she recognizes lucina’s dark blue cloak, moving quickly between the others, and yarne’s ears, and she can hear snatches of owain’s loud voice, but she’s too far for any more details. nah slumps forward, laughing shakily.

“it worked.” _thank naga._ she pushes herself to her feet, which, despite the shrinking seem content to support her weight. she looks sourly at her too-big clothes, now puddled at her feet, and pulls morgan’s coat around her. he laughs as he stands with her and she is tempted to throw an elbow at him. instead, she walks towards the others. she’s shorter than all of them again. and here she had thought there would be some upside to this…

“nah!” inigo is the first to notice her. the impact of his hug nearly knocks her off her feet. he’s laughing, but it sounds a lot like crying, and it’s a long time until he lets go. nah doesn’t like the look on his face when he does- it looks too much like she assumes hers does. like he’s seeing a beloved face long lost. 

“inigo, what-” before she can finish, inigo’s embrace is replaced by owain’s. his expression is the same as inigo’s. when he retreats, lucina and laurent are waiting behind them. 

“when did you come from?” nah asks quietly. they either don’t hear or don’t know how to respond. all she gets is tight hugs from lucina and laurent. nah looks around at all the others and feels like she has stepped back through time again. she hasn’t, though. not this time.

nah steps back and stands between her twins, practically swimming in morgan’s coat. lucina watches the twins closely, and her hand is far too near falchion’s hilt for nah’s comfort. they’re all watching her, now. 

“it’s been nearly a thousand years since i last saw any of you,” she starts. “i’m sorry you’re only here now because i need something from you.” a dozen questions take the air at the same time, but they all fall silent at a gesture from lucina. “honestly, i wasn’t even sure it would work, but we brought you here, now, because-” her voice catches. they have already had this fight. what right does she have to drag them into it again? she feels morgan’s hand on her shoulder and clears her throat. “grima has returned, and we have no one to stop him.” she holds lucina’s gaze. “we need help. please.” lucina is quiet, and nah can’t read her. their exalt had never been particularly open, but time has stolen what ability nah had had to divine lucina’s thoughts.

“you will have to tell us more,” lucina says at last. “but first-” her eyes narrow at the twins. “the last i knew anything of the two of you, you served grima. he claimed he had manipulated your memories. what do you have to say to that?”

the twins look to each other and shrug. “maybe we did. neither of us remember.”

lucina blinks. “you don’t remember.”

“nothing before turning up at nah’s house two years ago.” morgan smiles. her brother offers another shrug.

lucina drops her head and laughs once. short. disbelieving. “of course. your family has a very strange relationship with memory.”

nah stands straighter as the twins hide flinches. “they have done nothing but fight grima since i met them. they’re the reason you’re here- i couldn’t have done this without them.”

lucina sighs. “very well. i trust you, nah.” she takes a deep breath and sweeps her eyes around the courtyard. “it’s-” her face crumples, and nah suddenly wishes for the impassive mask again. lucina’s grief as she gazes on her friends is still fresh, and it cuts at nah. “i have missed you all.” nah looks at her feet.

“i’m sorry to drag all of you into this again. i wouldn’t have unless i had no other option.”

lucina steps forward and pulls nah into another embrace. “you mistake me, nah. there is little i would not have given to see you again. i only wish it was under happier circumstances.” she gazes at their friends. “for me, most of you have been dead for months. you brought me the gemstones and the fire emblem, and it cost all of you dearly.” her eyes linger on severa. “before the portal took me, it was tuesday.”

owain is the one who breaks the sudden silence. “i’m from the same time. it was wednesday.” none of his usual pretension. never a good sign for him.

the others share their own times. inigo and laurent are from the same time as lucina and owain, months after a costly victory over the fell dragon, wednesday. severa and noire and brady were all en route to ylisstol with their prizes when the portals swallowed them, and are overjoyed to see each other and know how the other groups fare. the rest, kjelle, yarne, cynthia, and gerome hail from the shepherds, during the war in valm.

the light begins to fade as they share their stories. nah leads them to the great hall of the castle. it had held at least two hundred, once. they numbered fourteen. the worries of war and time fall away as they talk and eat, and they are only friends who have not seen each other in far too long. hours later, nah looks for the twins, and finds them deep in conversation with laurent. still later, they are exhausted but refuse to leave each other. instead, they cluster around the great hearth and set a massive fire in it and huddle together to sleep, even severa and gerome.

“hey, nah,” morgan says before he drifts off. nah, nearly asleep herself, forces her eyes open. “what do you think would happen if we didn’t send them back?”

nah blinks hard, suddenly wide awake. “why do you ask?”

“oh, no reason,” he says around a yawn. “it’s just nice to have more than two friends, is all. goodnight.”

nah stares at the stone ceiling far above them and thinks. “we’d probably break time,” she says finally, even though she knows morgan has to be asleep by now.

“oh. that’s a shame,” his sister says from nah’s other side. nah laughs quietly and lets herself fall asleep.


End file.
